Segmentation based classification of retinal diseases in OCT images

Volumetric optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans offer detailed visualization of the retinal layers, where any deformation can indicate potential abnormalities. This study introduced a method for classifying ocular diseases in OCT images through transfer learning. Applying transfer learning from natural images to Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) scans present challenges, particularly when target domain examples are limited. Our approach aimed to enhance OCT-based retinal disease classification by leveraging transfer learning more effectively. We hypothesize that providing an explicit layer structure can improve classification accuracy. Using the OCTA-500 dataset, we explored various configurations by segmenting the retinal layers and integrating these segmentations with OCT scans. By combining horizontal and vertical cross-sectional middle slices and their blendings with segmentation outputs, we achieved a classification a ccuracy of 91.47% and an Area Under the Curve (AUC) of 0.96, significantly outperforming the classification of OCT slice images.